For Contractors, Work on GSA’s Schedule Consolidation Begins in January

The General Services Administration officially kicked off the consolidation of the Multiple Award Schedule in October but the first big step for federal vendors with contracts on schedule will be coming first thing next year.

As part of the consolidation, GSA will be merging its 24 separate schedules—the catalogs of pre-vetted contractors currently separated by types of offerings, like technology or office supplies—into one contract vehicle.

In a notice posted to GSA’s Interact page, the agency announced an upcoming Mass Modification, or Mass Mod, would be going out to current contract holders in January, beginning the process of officially modifying the terms of their contracts. Contractors that do not follow the process and respond to the modification by July 31 will no longer hold a contract on GSA’s schedule.

As contractors receive their modification documents, they should go through each clause line by line to assess how it will change from the current agreements. Vendors will have the opportunity to either accept each clause or request an exception. A list of allowable exceptions has been posted to the eLibrary so contractors can get familiar with them now and hit the ground running in January.

GSA suggests contractors complete their in-house assessments of the new clauses and reach out to their agency contracting officer by April 1 to allow enough time for revisions and negotiations ahead of the July 31 deadline.

Officials also noted vendors’ current “contracting officer, contract number, period of performance and products and services offered will not change as a result of acceptance of the Mass Mod.”

Beyond reviewing exceptions in the eLibrary, GSA suggests vendors take preliminary steps now ahead of the modification in January.

“Review the solicitation to understand where your offerings will fall under the new large categories, subcategories and SINs,” officials said in the Interact post. “Review the advance notice for the release of the MAS solicitation for a crosswalk of clauses to available offerings, matrix of overall clauses included in MAS and an industry FAQ.”

GSA will be holding two identical webinars to go over the process and allow vendors to ask questions of agency experts. The first will be held on Dec. 19, with the second on Jan. 9. Recording of the webinars will also be posted on Interact.